Google made another acquisition announcement today – they’ve bought a company called Zenter (“a company that provides software for creating online slide presentations”) to help complete their upcoming Powerpoint/presentation application. The price wasn’t disclosed. This is another liquidity event for Y Combinator, which funded Zenter (we covered their debut here). Google has been rumored to be creating an online Powerpoint clone since February. In April the rumors were confirmed by Eric Schmidt and then on the Google blog. As with the other applications in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, most of the technology seems to be imported. Google previously acquired Tonic Systems for their presentation technology. Zenter was focusing on the front end of the application, as well as community/sharing features. It complements Tonic, which focused on the back end technology for converting powerpoint presentations into Java objects. Zenter takes a more social look at slide shows, letting users share their projects and incorporate content directly from the web, including Google Images. You can see coverage on other Y Combinator startups (like Weebly, Buxfer, Writewith, Overhear.us, Snipshot, Justin.tv, and Xobni) here and here. → Read More
After Condé Nast, owner of Wired and other magazines/websites, acquired Y Combinator funded Reddit, people took notice. This wasn’t just some quirky incubator where they gave college students a few bucks to kick start their new companies (although it is that, too – their standard deal is $5000 + $5000 per founder, for 6%ish of the company) – real products were coming out of Y Combinator, and people started to notice. Y Combinator funds startups twice per year, in batches. Funded startups that have previously launched include Reddit, Kiko, Loopt, ClickFacts, TextPayMe, Snipshot, Inkling, Flagr, Wufoo, YouOS, PollGround, LikeBetter, Thinkature, JamGlue, Shoutfit, Scribd, Weebly, Buxfer, and Octopart. Today, Y Combinator invited in TechCrunch and a select group of investors and industry experts to view the current crop of companies, just getting ready to launch. Michael Arrington and I attended the sessions, and our notes on the new companies are below. Here’s a rundown of who presented, minus a few who are still in stealth mode: Zenter Zenter is an web based presentation app that promises to really take advantage of being online. Users will have the regular functionality of PowerPoint, but with the ability to directly add content from the web (Google Images). Each public slide show will also be put into a public library, for other users to remix or just drop into their show. Weebly Weebly is an AJAX website creator that recently joined Y Combinator. Weebly’s drag-n-drop interface lets you quickly put together a personal website any way you like. For the demonstration they recreated the Benchmark Capital website. They recently had a great upgrade to their site which included some slick new themes and layouts possibilities. Our previous coverage of Weebly is here and here. Virtualmin Virtualmin is taking on the lack of innovation in the server admin programs, like Plesk, by making a more accessable version for pages managed by the non-technical crowd. The program will feature simple installs of popular programs like content management systems that often cost extra on other providers. It will also let you administer your website from your desktop and mobile device. Octopart Vertical search engine Octopart, which launched not too long ago, focuses on putting an end the inadequate search engines used by electronics parts manufacturers. Octopart lets you search, compare prices, and view specifications for parts on Allied Electronics, Digi-Key, Mouser, and Newark InOne. They have a deal → Read More
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